Resin Glycosides from Ipomoea alba Seeds as Potential Chemosensitizers in Breast Carcinoma Cells.

Multidrug resistance is the expression of one or more efflux pumps, such as P-glycoprotein, and is a major obstacle in cancer therapy. The use of new potent and noncytotoxic efflux pump modulators, coadministered with antineoplastic agents, is an alternative approach for increasing the success rate of therapy regimes with different drug combinations. This report describes the isolation and structure elucidation of six new resin glycosides from moon vine seeds (Ipomoea alba) as potential mammalian multidrug-resistance-modifying agents. Albinosides IV-IX (1-6), along with the known albinosides I-III (7-9), were purified from the CHCl-soluble extract. Degradative chemical reactions in combination with NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry were used for their structural elucidation. Four new glycosidic acids, albinosinic acids D-G (10-13), were released by saponification of natural products 3-6. They were characterized as tetrasaccharides of either convolvulinolic (11S-hydroxytetradecanoic) or jalapinolic (11S-hydroxyhexadecanoic) acids. The potentiation of vinblastine susceptibility in multidrug-resistant human breast carcinoma cells of albinosides 1-6 was evaluated by modulation assays. The noncytotoxic albinosides VII (4) and VIII (5), at a concentration of 25 μg/mL, exerted the strongest potentiation of vinblastine susceptibility, with a reversal factor (RF) of 201- and >2517-fold, respectively.